Based on previews for this week’s episode “Vatos,” I had a bad feeling Walking Dead comic creator Robert Kirkman would deliver some watered-down filler about inner-city gangs amongst the zombies or some such forced nonsense.

Most of this episode seems like just that. Then we get the most terrifying fish fry in TV history. Spoilers ahead.

Maybe I should have heeded the early warning signs that death was on the horizon. I mean, our story does open with sweet Amy and big sis Andrea fishing and getting teary-eyed about how their dad taught them how. And then there’s weird Jim frantically digging what are obviously graves.

But then things took such a strange, warm-and-fuzzy detour.

Rick’s Fearless Foursome, back in downtown Atlanta to recoup firearms and a handless Merle, get sidetracked when some young thugs bum-rush Daryl and Glenn and kidnap the latter. Rick has a bargaining chip with Miguel, one of the apparent gang’s apparent members, but the apparent gang’s apparent leader Guillermo also wants Rick’s bag of guns in addition to young Miguel. Apparently.

Meanwhile, Jim’s digging frenzy has the rest of the camp spooked so they hold an impromptu intervention with Shane as spokesman. This naturally leads to Jim attacking Shane with his shovel and Shane cuffing Jim as Jim recounts how the only reason he’s alive is because walkers tore apart his family as he helplessly watched. Jim later calms down enough to blame his behavior on the heat, but even with a cooler head he still warns Lori to keep Carl really close.

As for the inevitable face-off between Rick’s un-merry men and Guillermo’s un-gang, that takes a really unexpected turn when a grandma(?!) of one of the thugs walks in as everyone has a gun pointed in his face.

Turns out Guillermo and other well-meaning “vatos” protect this grandma and other elder survivors of a nursing home. (Guillermo was the facility’s custodian while the grandson, Felipe, was the nurse.) So Rick leaves Guillermo some guns and they part ways peacefully.

Happy ending? Hardly. Rick and the gang’s van is missing and they’re convinced Merle’s behind the wheel, hellbent for camp with a major mad-on for being left him behind and forced to cauterize the bloody stomp where his hand used to be. (And yes, “Walking Dead” comic fans, I totally like this nod to that other character in the comic who’s one hand shorter.)

Had the ep ended here I would’ve deemed it a warm-and-fuzzy letdown. But then we get to that cozy campsite dinner with old Dale quoting Faulkner about his watch as “the mausoleum of all hope and desire,” which may be the granddaddy of all thunder rolls that trouble’s brewing.

That trouble starts with that wife-beating louse Ed, who doesn’t want to show his Shane-smashed face for dinner. No matter, because Ed ends up an appetizer for a gaggle of walkers who invade the camp and take down a few others, including — nooo!!! — Amy.

By the time Rick and the others arrive on foot with extra firepower, the damage is done. Andrea can only tell her dying sister she doesn’t know what to do as poor Amy fades to black before her teary eyes in one of the series’ more brutal, heartbreaking scenes. So Kirkman delivers the gut-wrenching shocks after all, even if we Walking Dead geeks totally knew this campsite carnage also plays out in the comic with Amy’s death.

Overall, Kirkman pens a pretty good ep, though I really wish he hadn’t devoted so much of it to the post-apocalyptic nursing home. Yes, I see that it further humanizes the story and further lulls us into a false sense of calm for what happens later. But I would have rather seen Merle come to life with Kirkman’s prose, if only because he’s just the kind of nutjob Kirkman writes so well in the comic.

Oh well, at least we got some of that Walking Dead comic-book magic from the mastermind himself. Just two eps to go before this sweet slice of smart terror disappears until season two.